Eleven COVID-19 Outbreaks with Local Transmissions Caused by the Imported SARS-CoV-2 Delta VOC — China, July–August, 2021
Lei Zhou, Kai Nie, Hongting Zhao, Xiang Zhao, Bixiong Ye, Ji Wang, Cao Chen, Hong Wang, Jiangli Di, Jinsong Li, Chao Li, Zhixiao Chen, Ruiqi Ren, Peihua Niu, Hui Chen, Tao Chen, Yali Wang, Lili Li, Bingxue Han, A Ruhan, Si Chen, Dan Li, Dan Li, Chunxia Jin, Xin Zhang, Jiangmei Liu, Chunyu Xu, Yecheng Yao, Yenan Feng, Zhili Li, Bike Zhang, Yang Song, Peter Hao, Yanping Zhang, Hao Li, Qun Li, George F. Gao, Guoqing Shi, Wenbo Xu, The First Institue for Endemic Diseases Control and Prevention of Jilin Province, Baicheng, Jilin, China
Abstract
Starting from December 2019, Wuhan, China, encountered the first outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (1-2). The epidemic was successfully suppressed by strict containment so that the number of infected people was reduced to 0 on April 8, 2020 (3-4). After that, China experienced roughly 3 dozen outbreaks with local transmission caused by imported severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). These outbreaks were then contained by an effective suppression strategy, and the number of infected people has successfully reached zero again. However, local outbreaks of COVID-19 have reappeared in several areas in China recently and were caused by the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant of concern (VOC) (5).